


Help me piece it all together (darling)

by samshinechester



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst and Humor, Barista Jared Padalecki, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Jealous Jensen Ackles, Lovecraftian, M/M, Married Couple, MiB Jensen, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28390371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samshinechester/pseuds/samshinechester
Summary: You see, it’s supposed to go like this: boy meets boy, boy falls for boy, boy and boy ride together into the sunset, all ever after and shit.It’s not hard. It’s not rocket science, it’s three fucking steps, one-two-three, and he and Jared reached the riding part just a couple years ago. They should still be… well, you know, riding? Galloping hand in hand into that eternal sunshine? Thousands of books swore by it. Fairytales swore by it - hell, Love, Actually swore by it.And yet.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 7
Kudos: 204
Collections: SPN J2 Xmas Exchange





	Help me piece it all together (darling)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [candygramme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/candygramme/gifts).



You see, it’s supposed to go like this: boy meets boy, boy falls for boy, boy and boy ride together into the sunset, all _ever after_ and shit. 

It’s not hard. It’s not rocket science, it’s three fucking steps, one-two-three, and he and Jay reached the riding part just a couple years ago. They should still be… well, you know riding? Galloping hand in hand into that eternal sunshine? Thousands of books swore by it. Fairytales swore by it - hell, _Love, Actually_ swore by it.

And yet. Something must have really gone wrong somewhere along the way, because this? This has got nothing on Ever After.

Noth-ing.

Listen up.

+

Jensen’s life is the most ordinary ever. Like, ever. He plays by the book: a 9 to 5, a husband, two dogs and a mortgage he’ll still be paying thirty years from now. He likes hockey and cold beers while he’s grilling pork in the backyard; he likes his coffee tar-black, a cigarette after dinner, and the curve of Jared’s mouth in their honeymoon picture, the one he keeps on his desk. There are jokes exchanged with co-workers and strolls on the beach with the dogs in tow. An anniversary gift to buy soon, too. Maybe a two-days getaway to go with it, if he can pry Jared away from his ‘shop long enough.

See? It’s ordinary. It’s regular. It’s quiet. He’s a square peg slotted into its square hole and he’s okay with it, all neat and organized. All—

“Hey, J?”

Jensen looks up, squints. Chad is a semi-defined blob leaning against a semi-defined door.

“Yeah?”

“Uh, gimme a sec—” 

There’s some rearranging going on from Chad’s side then, whatever he’s carrying clicking and shuffling together. Something ends on the floor - cellphone is Jensen’s best guess - and Chad starts cursing, flailing, and dropping even more stuff. This would be entertaining as hell to watch if 1. they weren’t on the clock and 2. Jensen had his glasses on.

“Chad. What do you want?”

“…Uh? Oh, yeah, right.” Shuffle-shuffle and a leg movement that looks like he’s putting his damn foot on one of the shelves again; Jensen still wishes HR authorized his request for getting that pulverizer set up in his office. 

“So, Jackles, the fuck am I supposed to do tomorrow?” 

“I don’t know, quit?” 

“Ha ha, dude. There’s a comedian hidden behind that stick up your ass, I know there is,” Chad says, and the loud crash that follows tells Jensen Chad’s just used both hands to flip him the bird. He grins and pulls up the schedule on his screen, while Chad _aw, mans_ and moans about whatever being _‘a gift from Sophia’s aunt, come on, she’s gonna skin me alive.’_

“Why were you carrying it to work then? Anyway, you’ve got a routine check on the Gorgonites colony, that debriefing about the visit of the Ambassador at one pm, and—” Jensen pauses, blinks. “You still haven’t filled the report about the incident with the Kelortians? Really? It’s been three weeks.”

“Oh, wow! Look at the time, it’s late—”

“Chad—”

“No, no, gotta run!” Chad says. He’s picking up his stuff at warp speed, looks like. “Sorry! See ya never!”

For the sake of appearance, Jensen does make an attempt to stop him, getting up from his chair and drawing close, but his ‘And what am I supposed to tell Harris?’ is half-assed and bounces against Chad’s back. Not that he can blame him: interspecies relationships are forbidden, even casual ones, and he wouldn’t know how to spin ‘but the Kelortian chick was hot!’ in a satisfying way either.

Oh, well.

Jensen stretches, extending his arms and going on his tiptoes. All that time spent at the headquarters leaves him with too many kinks in his back, a hint of softness in his belly; he should start hitting the gym again, maybe, or join Jared on his morning run. Get back in shape.

Tomorrow, he thinks as he goes back to his desk. He’d pencil in twenty minutes of exercise, between the Tuesday stop at the dry-cleaner and the one at the optician to pick up his glasses. In the meantime, he has a pile of reports to check.

Half an hour in though, he pushes aside the one he’s going over - blah blah Remoolians something something - and pulls open the drawer. He needs a break and some Tylenol for the headache that’s building above his right eye, and he should still have a couple left in there, the pill bottle tucked behind an old planner and his neuralyzer.

He picks it up. Switches it on.

It buzzes for a moment while it scans Jensen’s biometric data, then it goes quiet again. New models have a fancy welcoming intro that would start at this point, but Jensen’s is old school. It does - well, did - its duty in silence and that’s it. Harris offered him the updated version when it first rolled out, two or three months ago, but he refused. That part of the job ended the moment he and Jared tied the knot, and he’s been on strict office duty since then. Aliens keep showing up to say hello when he’s on his break, sure, but there are no more car races or undercover stints or, or the need to spring after a witness to neuralyze them.

Last time he did—

Jensen drops the neuralyzer into the drawer and closes it.

So, yeah, maybe he doesn’t really lead an ordinary life after all, but nope, no more. Paper-pushing has its own merits too, even for a MiB. He’s done. 

+

Spoiler alert: he’s not.

+

Jensen likes the suit. While it leaves no room for variety, he looks good in it and he knows it; he can even rock the sunglasses-on-the-inside look without passing too much for a douche. Still, sometimes he wishes for a little more freedom in the gear department: whenever he swings by the coffee shop to pick Jared up after work, he sticks out like a sore thumb.

The fact that the ‘shop has a high percentage of alien patrons isn’t helping either. Jensen has recurrent nightmares featuring some clueless rando outing him in front of his husband, _‘Hey, Agent, remember when your partner got high on Tarkan soda and tried to feel up the Priestess? Yeah? Good times!’_

Indeed.

Said partner has also decided to trail along today, just to keep Jensen’s blood pressure nice and high.

“What’s with the face, dude? You’re not the one who got kicked out for breaking Aunt Myrta’s vase, cheer up! Your beau is right there,” Chad stage-whispers to him, and shouts, “Goddamn it, Jay-man! Fresh outta L’Oreal again, I see!” to Jared.

Come to think of it, Jensen should be more worried about Chad outing him than a random alien.

“Hi, guys,” Jared says. He’s holding up a finger and checking something on his waiter tablet, it seems, comparing notes or whatever with the main terminal. The line between his eyebrows and the lack of dimples tell Jensen how unhappy he is. Uh. “Just give me a moment.”

“As long as we ignore the idiot here, I’m golden,” Jensen says, laughing at Chad’s indignant, ‘Fuck off and die, man.’ 

He sits on a bar stool and leans against the counter, scoping out the place as he does so. There’s a family of Arquilians on table four, mom and dad slurping at their coffee while the kids wreak havoc in the play corner; Gen, his former Kylothian informant, is perched in her usual spot near the windows, and a couple Stellairians are perusing the cakes display. The other patrons are human and therefore not an issue. He can focus back on Jared, who’s still frowning at his tablet.

“You okay? What’s wrong with that thing?” he asks, craning his neck to get a better look at it.

“I’m awesome.” Jared taps on the screen and it goes dark before Jensen’s eyes, killing on the spot any offer of help he might have wanted to make. Then Jared says, “Let me make you a coffee,” and his tone is a mix of briskness and concern. “What about Chad?”

They both turn around, but Chad has wandered off to Gen and Jensen has a standing bet at the office about the length of Gen’s patience. His ten bucks say she’d snap and try to gut him within New Year’s Eve, so he has no intention to intervene now that his deadline is looming close.

“Leave him be,” he tells Jared, who shrugs and starts on Jensen’s cup.

Seconds drags by, neither of them speaking. Jensen read once that coffee shop noises are used to relax and whatever, but today the _Coffitivy_ live experience is just giving him eye twitches. He loosens up his tie and pushes up his glasses, pinches the bridge of his nose. A moment later, he hears a clink and the smell of freshly brewed coffee fills the air.

“Your black, no sugar, no anything is ready,” Jared says. Jensen watches him cross his arms and lean in, mimicking Jensen’s own pose. “What about your glasses? Are they okay?”

“Yep. Old lenses, new frame—”

“—so you just need to keep Sadie away from them.” 

There’s a tiny grin on Jared’s face now. It’s the same grin that used to make Jensen hear wedding bells when they were still dating, the one that always sparks a warm feeling inside his chest. He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind Jared’s ear. “Hey,” he says, “it’s your dog. You should’ve taught her not to chew on things that don’t belong to her.”

“So we’re really having a ‘your kid-my kid’ kind of conversation?”

It’s Jensen’s turn to grin, and he does. “Yep.”

Now, _Cool Beans_ has a strict non-PDA code regarding the staff, and they’re about to break in three… two…

The beeping of a phone - Jared’s phone, because _of course_ it’s Jared’s phone - makes them both jump, spring apart. Fuck.

“Sorry, Jen, let me check—”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Sure.”

If Jensen were anybody else, he’d miss the cues Jared is sending while he reads whatever message he’s just received. They’re subtle enough to go unnoticed for the most part, but that small head tilt, that quick intake of breath are telling Jensen he won’t like what he’s about to hear.

“Goddamn it,” Jared says.

“What is it?”

He looks up, and Jensen’s seen deer in the headlights with a better poker face, considered. “Chris can’t make it tonight, he’s asking me to cover for him.”

“What, again?”

“Well, yeah.” Jared shrugs and pockets his phone. “You know how he’s like sometimes.”

Oh yeah, Jensen does. Last couple of months it’s been a never-ending litany of _Chris can’t make it, Katie had issues with her roommates, I need to stay overtime, yada yada yada._ At this point Jared comes home just to sleep, feed the dogs and wave goodbye on his way out; he’s giving Jensen weird flashbacks about his field agent days, which, stupid.

Jensen wants to tell him. He wants to air here and now every grievance he has about their marriage, write them down on a napkin and shove them inside Jared’s apron. Chad doesn’t call him a drama bitch just for kicks, after all.

If he doesn’t, it’s just because Amell - fucking Stephen Amell - chooses that moment to waltz into the ‘shop. 

“Hey, Jared!” he shouts, loud enough to make everyone turn around and stare. “I was hoping to catch you!”

Amell jogs to the counter, all breathless and athletic and shit, and almost bumps into Jensen while hopping on a stool. He may be a regular, but he’s also clueless as fuck about how Jensen’s trigger finger starts to twitch whenever he’s around.

“I was hoping to catch you,” Amell repeats. “Your hot half-decaf is much better than Chris’, you know.”

Jared smirks. “Is it, now?”

“Betcha. Wow, but it’s cold outside, I’m freezing. Here, look.” He thrusts his hands towards Jared. “I forgot my gloves and I can barely feel them.”

Jensen coughs ‘pussy’ into his own fist, but nobody is paying him any mind, Amell still whining about the cold and Jared nodding like he’s really interested in it. They keep chatting as Jared makes him his order, sometimes bantering and sometimes laughing, while Jensen fumes in silence right next to them. 

Problem is, Amell looks like a nice guy and he _is_ a nice guy, just with no common sense. He flirts with anything with a pulse: men, women, non-binary, single, engaged, married, widowed, it doesn’t matter. They breathe and cross his path, he flirts. Jensen still hopes to find out that Amell is a Bug in disguise, and therefore eligible for a bullet or two, but the sad truth is that Amell is human. Inappropriate as fuck, unable to tell when to draw the line, but human.

And he’s into Jared, looks like. Jared who works late seven days a week and is always too tired or busy to share some time with his husband. Or.

“Okay!” Jensen says, getting up and slamming a ten on the counter. He might have put a little too much enthusiasm in it, judging by how both Jared and Amell flinch, but hey. He doesn’t really care right now. “So, Jay, when you want to come home, you remember where it is, uh?”

“What?”

“Just make sure to shower first.”

Confusion, realization, and something that looks like relief flash on Jared’s face before he narrows his eyes and glares at Jensen. “Are you insane? I’m working.”

Rather than answering, Jensen heads for the door.

+

It should have led to a big argument. It should have had Jared following him to hash it out in the parking lot, or at least coming home earlier and have at it there. Hell, even arguing over breakfast would have been acceptable.

What happens instead is… nothing. Jared shows up around one am, doesn’t comment on how much Jensen sucks at faking sleep, and stays up a while longer, tapping on his phone like his life depends on it. Come morning, he’s already gone when Jensen steps into the kitchen; only the dogs and a post-it stuck to the fridge are there to greet him.

Fantastic.

“Hello, guys,” he tells them, kneeling down to scratch them both behind the ears. “Jared already fed and walked you, hm?”

“Yes, he did,” Harley says. It sounds a little jumbled because his tongue is lolling out, but Jensen’s been around them long enough to pick up on every word anyway. “What did you do to him now?”

“Me? I just woke up.”

“Jensen, playing dumb is not cute when you are, in fact, dumb as a rock,” Sadie says. She headbutts the palm of his hand, then she turns around and hits his arm with her tail. “Fix it. You’re both moping in your corners, it’s annoying.”

Jensen shakes his head and gets on his feet. The note Jared left on the fridge has both his daily work hours - second shift again, ha - and ‘we’ll talk later’ scribbled on. He grabs the little post-it and folds it in two, shoves it inside his pocket. “I really don’t have time to stay here and get verbally abused by Roomolian fake dogs, you know,” he tells them. “It’s a wonder Jared managed to end with you two. I keep telling him he should have chosen a pair of poodles instead.” 

Sadie’s laughter and, “A real wonder!” barked by Harley follow him on his way out.

+

Forget work. Forget schedules, weapons inventory, new recruits profiling and reports: he has a shitton of work to wrap up within the afternoon and he’s managed to start zilch. Zero. Nada de nada. He keeps brooding over Amell instead, over Jared’s ever changing shifts and over whoever was messaging him last night. Jensen’s paranoid side conquered his rational one while he was loading the warehouse program, then set up a Power Point titled _‘Amell and Jay fucking on a coffee beans carpet’_ as he scrolled past gun models. Now it’s starting on pie charts regarding handjobs and blowjobs. 

Every section of the chart is of the same bright yellow of the post-it, too.

‘We’ll talk later,’ Jared wrote. Talk about what, divorce papers? The best way to split the mortgage? 

“Jensen?” 

“I’m keeping the house and the dogs, fuck you,” he roars on autopilot. Harris’ voice registers right after he’s closed his mouth, of course, because his life? Sucks.

“—Uh, boss,” he says.

“What’s going on?”

“—Nothing?”

Harris sighs and marches towards his desk. She’s carrying folders, a dozen or so, and each of them has a big red ‘confidential’ seal rubber-stamped on the cover. Someone in exec must have had a field day with that stamp. Jensen resumes his screen-staring the moment she unloads the folders on the reports stack, trying to look busy. Efficient. Unconcerned with how much she’s messing up his workspace.

…Except that she sits on his desk. She sits on his motherfucking desk, okay, like, like with her butt parked this close to his left arm, and, oh no. No way. 

“Do you mind?” he hisses, still not looking up.

“No,” Harris says, all cheerful. “We dated for a year, dumbass. And even if we didn’t, your little outburst would be a dead giveaway. So.” She pokes him in the shoulder. “Spill. You’re fake working anyway.”

“It’s a personal matter,” Jensen says through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry. It won’t be interfering with the job anymore.”

Harris shoots him the deadest, flattest look known to man. It’s supposed to make him fidget - they _did_ date for a year, after all, even if it was almost a decade ago - but Jensen forces himself to relax and slouch against the back of his chair. Crossing his arms would be too defensive, so he links his fingers behind his head, stretches his legs and raises an eyebrow. Two can play that game.

“Mexican standoff,” Harris says after fifteen seconds of mutual staring.

“Seems so.”

She shrugs and pokes him again. “I know you’re all gung-ho on proper job behavior and such, so yes, I’ll take the hint and back off. I came here to talk to you about something else, actually.” Harris picks up one of the folders, opens it in her lap and starts sifting through the papers. Once she finds what she’s looking for, she drops it on Jensen’s keyboard.

It’s a drawing of an ugly-ass monster, tentacled and yellow. 

“We’ve been picking up odd vibes for months now,” she says. “We’re still keeping our options open, but we’re pretty sure it’s him. I _am_ sure it’s him. All the witnesses agree on that picture being accurate enough.”

“All right, let me see.”

Jensen switches his desk lamp on and studies the drawing for a while. His mental Rolodex of aliens & monsters is spinning. “Give me the whole file.”

“First tell me who you think he is.”

“A big player,” Jensen says. “I need to compare some notes and run an archive check, but if I had five bucks to spare?” He taps a finger on the drawing. “The Yellow King.” 

He turns towards Harris then, shaking his head. “Why are you asking me anyway? Plenty of other profilers around here.”

Harris looks at him straight in the eye. “Because they’re all paper-pushers, Jensen. Great behind their PC screens, useless in the field, and you aren’t.” She pauses for a moment before continuing. “I wanted to ask you to… reconsider. For this mission only.”

Last week, Jensen would have laughed in her face and said no. Three days ago; yesterday even. Right now? Well.

“Okay,” he says. “Just this once. Fill me in.”

+

Being back in the saddle is anticlimactic. He still has the same MiB badge, the same clearance, the same gun and the same neuralyzer. The same partner too, which. Uh. He could have done without, but Chad is too happy to ditch the headquarters to care.

“I got stuck with all the boring shit, what with your fat ass being glued to the office.”

“You got stuck with them because you were on probation forever, dickhead. And don’t talk about my ass. Don’t even think about it,” Jensen says, but Chad has already hopped off the car and he’s waving his finger goodbye. 

“Forget about hitching a ride from me ever again!” Jensen yells after him, just to have the last word, and pretends not to hear him laughing. When Chad is no longer in the rear view mirror, he starts the car and dives back into the traffic. Jared’s shift should be over in about an hour. Plenty of time.

+

_Cool Beans_ is closed when Jensen gets there. He blinks twice at the ‘Sorry!’ sign just to make sure he’s not hallucinating but nope, still closed.

“What the fuck,” Jensen tells the parking lot. “It’s six pm.”

The homeless guy who sleeps next to the dumpsters gives him the thumbs up and nods. “It sure is!”

Jensen groans and starts checking his pockets. Being married to the owner of a shop has some advantages, namely having a spare key or two at hand if need be. It also saves him from another B&E charge, which, awesome: the headquarters can and will turn a blind eye towards certain kinds of violations, but Jensen prefers to keep his record clean. Clean-ish.

When he steps inside, Jared is behind the counter, fiddling again with his tablet. He’s so busy it takes him a moment to register someone else’s presence, and that gives Jensen enough time to study Jared’s face. He looks tense. Worried. Then he spots Jensen standing there and surprise gets added to the mix.

“Jen? What are you doing here?”

“I—” Thousands of petty questions, of petty answers are popping up in Jensen’s brain, but he ignores them all and spreads his arms wide. “You said you wanted to talk, right? So, talk.”

“Yes, I do, but not here.”

“And where?” The drama bitch in him is waking up, it seems, because he lets his mouth curl up in a smile as fake as his official job description. “I mean, home? Because hey, maybe you didn’t notice but you’re never there anymore.”

“I know. It’s—”

“It’s the job, sure. I understand. Speaking of, I’m taking on a new client, so I won’t be home that much either from now on.”

Jared rubs a hand on his face. His fingers are shaking a little, and he looks paler than usual. Even his voice doesn’t have its regular carefree ring. “Jesus, why are you like this?”

“I’ve always been _like this_ ,” Jensen says, finger-quoting as he speaks. “If you don’t like it any longer, I’m sure Amell can help you out.”

“Oh God, again? Why should Stephen—”

Jensen never finds out what _Stephen_ should or should not do, because Jared’s tablet comes to life with an ear-splitting whine. He grabs it right away and starts tapping on the screen, alternating between that and the main terminal, his fingers flying faster than Jensen’s ever seen them.

“Shit, shit, shit—”

“Jared, what the hell?”

A faint light is coming from the pantry. Jensen turns towards it and sees how the door is beginning to swing open, tiny inch by tiny inch rather than all in once, as if something ( _something_ ) was testing its resistance. As if the light itself - a putrid, vomit-inducing yellow - were solid enough to push at it—

Oh, Christ.

Jensen’s training kicks in. He pulls his gun, jumps over the counter and tries to shove Jared away, but Jared, who never ever does like he’s told, not even with a Lovecraftian God in the cupboard, grabs him by the arm and gives him a shake.

“You have to get out!” Jared shouts, his voice almost drowned by the whining of the tablet. “Go!”

“What, _no_. You don’t know—”

“—A gun won’t help, you have to get the fuck away from here!”

“This is not a simple gun—”

Yellow keeps spilling from the pantry; a light wind fills the ‘shop, ruffling Jared’s hair and making two stacks of cups clink together. If Jensen strains his ears, he can also hear a rumble, like a storm brewing in the distance. Then the pantry door opens at last, and something that his mind can only label as tentacles, black and razor tipped, starts creeping in.

What happens next is a blur of detached images: Jared grabbing his table and stepping in front of him; more tentacle-things crawling inside the shop, latching on anything close enough; Jensen aiming at the center of the pantry, while yellow miasma creeps up his leg, his chest; wires he failed to notice until now flashing red all around the door frame; Jared crying out as a tentacle curls around his shoulders and him, him emptying a whole clip right into the fucker.

Then there’s a flash so bright it almost fries Jensen’s retinas, and then nothing else.

+

He’s not dead. He can’t be, because everything hurts like a mother and Billy Joe is wondering if he’s paranoid or just stoned from a radio nearby. Also, he’s pretty sure someone is holding his hand.

“The fuck,” he says. It comes off as a rasp, but it’s the sentiment that matters.

“I’m happy to see you too.” Jared’s voice matches his own, all rough and hoarse. It takes Jensen a little while to remember how to turn his head, but it’s okay. He’s alive and Jared seems unhurt - if you ignore the sling and the bruises all over his face, that is, but Jay’s breathing. They both are. It could have gone so much worse, considered.

—Speaking of.

“It’s sealed,” Jared says. “No idea if we managed to kill him, but the portal is sealed now. World saved, mission accomplished.” He lets a beat pass before adding, “Federal accountant.”

“Shut up, barista,” Jensen shoots back.

Jared’s eyebrows almost disappear into his hairline, but he shakes his head and squeezes Jensen’s hand in his own. It’s a good feeling. Jensen likes it.

They don’t speak for a couple of minutes. Billy Joe has faded into Axl telling his baby about heaven above; the sky outside is overcast, and every once in a while the leaves of a pine tree seem to flutter just so, almost brushing against the windowpane. Everything is back on track.

Jensen coughs. If he closes his eyes, he can still see the wires wrapped around the door frame, that vivid red flash. “What—” he starts. Stops. Coughs once more. “What. What happened?”

“I’m giving you the cliff notes, but, uh,” Jared shrugs, winces. His collarbone will probably be out of commission for a while; been there, done that too. Then Jared starts up again, and Jensen focuses back on what he’s saying. “I work for the FBI, the X-Files section. We wanted to draw Hastur in and collapse the portal while he was crossing it, but he showed up before we were ready. I was supposed to have backup—”

“—you did.”

The glare Jared shoots him could freeze Hell over twice. “I did. Some meddling, jealous MiB who posed as an accountant and couldn’t tell an informat from a side piece was my backup. Ring any bell?”

“Maybe— wait, informant? Amell?”

“Yeah.”

Jensen laughs. It hurts, of course, but he can’t help it. After a moment, Jared joins him, even if his laughter has a liquid, suspicious note in it.

“I’m not into Stephen, I never cared about Stephen,” he says. “And you flatlined once during the ambulance ride and once midway through surgery. You inhaled some of that yellow whatever. I thought-- I thought I’d lost you, dickhead.”

“Uh. Sorry?”

Jared shrugs again and winces again - kid’s never gonna learn. 

“It’s fine,” he tells Jensen then. “I’ll kick your ass later, after you’ve recovered. And groveled too: all this shit is worth six months of blowjobs at the very least.”

“Deal,” Jensen says.

“Go the fuck to sleep, jerk.”

“Hm.” 

Now it’s Jensen who squeezes Jared’s hand. He still has a million questions to ask and a million answers to give, but he guesses they can wait. It’s just— 

“Hey, Jared?”

“What is it?”

“…Are you really called X-Files?”

**Author's Note:**

> \- For candygramme. I grabbed one of your prompts, added some of your likes and sprinkled aliens all over it. I hope you like it!  
> \- Thank you to Laughablelament for the moral support and for being an excellent beta: <3 dear!  
> \- The pantry trick is a reference to Stephen King, while I stole the title from Bastille  
> \- Much love to the mods. This is my favorite SPN challenge :D


End file.
